Monday, February 6th, 6:30 to 8:00 PM

The Shala Yoga House
815 Broadway, NYC
between 11th and 12th street
$20

For more information, visit the The Shala website:

http://theshala.com/workshops.html

The workshop description:

For many seekers, the spiritual path is considered to be a movement toward “the light” and does not include the equally important process of delving into, identifying and integrating repressed aspects of our psyche (the shadow). Today we will explore this often overlooked aspect of spiritual work and examine how we often fool ourselves using spirituality to hide our shadow (from ourselves and others) rather than honestly facing ourselves. Through four guided meditations through the day, lecture, experiential exercises, group discussion, and Q&A sessions, we will examine some of the common masks we use to hide our shadow side and ways we can begin to productively integrate these aspects of our psyches.

This is the last episode installment (#5).

In email or via RSS, you may use the following link to access/download the podcast directly to your computer (warning: approximately 43.6 MB): http://abdiassadi.com/podcasts/abdi_assadi_ny_open_center_10-30-2011_episode5.mp3

Or, you may access this podcast episode via your iTunes application:

Launch iTunes and Subscribe to the Podcast

AbdiAssadi.com

The workshop description:

For many seekers, the spiritual path is considered to be a movement toward “the light” and does not include the equally important process of delving into, identifying and integrating repressed aspects of our psyche (the shadow). Today we will explore this often overlooked aspect of spiritual work and examine how we often fool ourselves using spirituality to hide our shadow (from ourselves and others) rather than honestly facing ourselves. Through four guided meditations through the day, lecture, experiential exercises, group discussion, and Q&A sessions, we will examine some of the common masks we use to hide our shadow side and ways we can begin to productively integrate these aspects of our psyches.

The last episode installment (#5) will follow shortly.

In email or via RSS, you may use the following link to access/download the podcast directly to your computer (warning: approximately 65.2 MB): http://abdiassadi.com/podcasts/abdi_assadi_ny_open_center_10-30-2011_episode4.mp3

Or, you may access this podcast episode via your iTunes application:

Launch iTunes and Subscribe to the Podcast

AbdiAssadi.com

The workshop description:

For many seekers, the spiritual path is considered to be a movement toward “the light” and does not include the equally important process of delving into, identifying and integrating repressed aspects of our psyche (the shadow). Today we will explore this often overlooked aspect of spiritual work and examine how we often fool ourselves using spirituality to hide our shadow (from ourselves and others) rather than honestly facing ourselves. Through four guided meditations through the day, lecture, experiential exercises, group discussion, and Q&A sessions, we will examine some of the common masks we use to hide our shadow side and ways we can begin to productively integrate these aspects of our psyches.

New episode installments will follow every week.

In email or via RSS, you may use the following link to access/download the podcast directly to your computer (warning: approximately 73.6 MB): http://abdiassadi.com/podcasts/abdi_assadi_ny_open_center_10-30-2011_episode3.mp3

Or, you may access this podcast episode via your iTunes application:

Launch iTunes and Subscribe to the Podcast

AbdiAssadi.com

As you celebrate/survive/dread these holy-days/horror-days/holidays remember that you are that you seek. And please, don’t think and drive.

Love to you
abdi

This week I spoke with Abdi Assadi, author of The Shadow on the Path about his book and his approach to healing. Let’s just say he’s not your baby boomer mother’s spiritual healer.

JD: In your book, Shadows on the Path, you make the case that words can often confuse us in our search for the truth. To illustrate your point you share a story from the Zen tradition about a stick pointing to the moon. Could you share the tale and elaborate on it here?

AA: Ah, the master wordsmith taking me to task on the function of words in our lives! Lao Tzu started the Taoist classic Tao Teh Ching by stating: “Those who speak do not know, those who know do not speak”. Chuang Tzu, the satirist Taoist philosopher that came after him is purported to have said “the old man starts by stating those who speak do not know and then writes a whole book”! What Lao Tzu was warning us about is the difficulty of conveying direct experience with words. Intellectual concepts and internal experience are not the same. But if no one attempted to share their experience, this would be a pretty boring place to pass time in. Any of us who has devoured a solid book knows that words can be liberating. A good writer can put the real experience using words out there but she still can not give us the direct experience.

That is the warning of the Zen story. It is about the danger of words and concepts when we are attempting to point out something real. In the analogy a person picks up a stick to point out the moon and we are warned not to confuse the stick with the moon. That is, not to stare at the stick instead of looking at the moon. I view it as a good intention to hold for any of us who are interested in communicating. Writer be aware.

JD: As you know I believe strongly in the practice of using one’s intuition to illuminate a clear strategy for solving life’s problems. In your book you talk about how people can often become more confused when they search for “the” answer whether through the escape of drugs or the seeming help of gurus. How can someone who is overloaded with confusion (and who isn’t?) tune out the contradictory messages and tune in to inner truth? (And yes, I want “the” one true answer. Ha!)

AA: Of course I am the jackass that will try to give you “the” answer! Do remember “those who speak do not know and those who know do not speak”…

Such an important point you are putting out here. I would start by saying that truth has consequences and we are all aware of that. So, many times we really don’t want the answer because the answer can involve catastrophic changes for the ego. One thing I have learned from decades of being a healer is that many of us unconsciously are quite comfortable with our suffering. No matter how much we might deride that fact consciously. Secondly, intuition is not a switch we can throw on and off. Once we become conscious of its song, it will constantly hold us up to task of what needs to come or go. That takes tremendous courage since our inner being and our ego are rarely on the same page. What feeds the ego many times can suffocate our soul and vice versa. It takes deep inner work to get these two aspects of our selves on the same page. Many times the act of seeking the answer through the myriad of ways that we do is in fact a distraction of the highest order. The seeking has to be given up at some point. The truth is always right under our nose if we slow down enough to listen.

To your point, absolutely intuition can and must be used as a compass to steer our inner and outer life. But it is a relationship and as such must be fostered with utmost care. It is the deepening of this relationship that can help us when contradictory voices are at work. The inner truth is always screaming the loudest, we don’t need to tune in to it as much as work on not tuning it out. A regular grounding practice is the surest way I have found for learning to listen.

JD: I saw an interview designer Norma Kamali did with you recently in which you say that “Science is the new religion,” and continue on to describe our culture as generally closed-minded. Yet at the same you are no cheerleader of anyone or any group that describes itself as “spiritual.” You aptly describe our society as very binary, either-or. How do you think we as culture can embrace the great tools science provides us with and the potential that spiritual concepts offer us?

AA: We want absolutes in our lives and science is one of the things intellectuals can reach out to in order to have that false sense of safety. Life is not static and nothing in it is for certain and our egos are terrified of that fact. So we look towards ways that we can protect our selves. Science is one of those things. I finished my pre med degree in a scientific research oriented school and it was mind boggling how small minded my teachers were. People forget that science is an ever changing and growing field. Doctors were pushing as well as consuming cigarettes only sixty years ago. Margarine was the new wonder food. We tend to forget these things. We tend to forget that science is constantly moving the goal post. What we were sure to be truth ten years ago has been proven to be a lot more nuanced if not off. But science is presented as absolute and that is not honest. We also forget that scientists have the same cultural blind spots that we do. Some of the greatest scientific minds of our time have been subverted to serve the agenda of corporations that have no interest in truth but rather profit. So my saying that science is the new religion is pointing to my understanding that science will not have the answer to our internal seeking. Science can certainly help break our hypnosis and dogma of ridiculous out moded ways of thinking but it can also replace it with new ones of its own making. So I am not preaching anti science here but rather awareness of the fact that it is a tool not an end in its self. But people “believe” in science with the same fervor that they believe in religion because people often need to believe in something to make them feel on solid ground.

And you are correct, I am not a fan of any organized spiritual group because any organization by definition becomes interested in its own propagation rather than truth. Truth is dangerous for any one or thing that takes a solid position. Egos take solid positions and truth decimates egos by the simple act of pointing out the impermanent nature of this realm.

Where science and spirituality meet is the world of quantum physics. Life is a lot more strange than we are led to believe. We are all functioning under a Newtonian model to this point. It is mind blowing to try to even comprehend the quantum model even as a neophyte. And that mind blowing is exactly what happens with a genuine spiritual awakening.

JD: So many people in the West put on a mask and espouse the ancient concepts of the East. Many go searching for spiritual masters in the East. Do you think that the so-called Eastern way of living has something to teach us, or – in this globally connected world – is the “East” as we may think about it in terms of ancient teachings no longer the place to go for answers?

AA: We can learn from every thing and every one. The question is the degree of validity of transplanting one culture on another with out being conscious of the pitfalls of it. Here you are as a woman, writer, a lover, a mother. How will the teachings of patriarchal society, most likely from a male monk relate to you? There are some shining exempts of clear teachings but those are rare in my experience. Usually there is cultural baggage that comes with those teachings. So we have to be cognizant of these short comings. For example, how do we apply a monk’s teachings to someone who does not live an ascetic life?

As I said before, the whole seeking trip is another way of hiding. It is an initial stage. It is like collecting menus, one is not yet eating. The real spiritual process begins when we stop collecting menus and sit at the table and start eating. Also there is this misnomer that spiritual awakening is an event. In actuality it is a process with valleys and mountains.

JD: You and I have talked many times about the concept of “hard work as magic”. For all of us, truly tapping into what we know in our core is very very challenging. But do you think someone has to have special gifts to “tap in” a little bit more deeply, the way someone might have an innate gift for music or sports? How can a person who thinks of themselves as very non-spiritual, tap into the old “don’t know” mind and really see things clearly, just as clearly as a self-proclaimed spiritual person can?

AA: Yes, yes: hard work as magic. I love that. In our culture of instant gratification and instant celebrity, we do not cop to the fact that magic starts and ends with hard work. Magic is when we don’t see the hard work and see the result. Let’s take you as a writer: you have an innate gift for it but you have spent years fine honing that gift, grinding away, pulling your hair out to get your juices flowing. So even in the case of the gift, hard work is still involved to bring it to a high art. Yet I can see you with minimal effort write powerful prose without knowing that there is decades of discipline and hard work behind it.

As to your question of wanting to see things clearly: non spiritual people have a huge advantage over spiritual people. This is because they don’t have pre conceived ideas. Spiritual people have all kinds of concepts about truth. But we can rest assured that none of them are even close to the reality because they are constructs of the ego. “Don’t know mind”, the zen concept of letting go of the mind’s attempt at identifying everything is a profound practice.

Nisargaddata, the old grumpy enlightened Indian master used to say: “You don’t have to understand, enough if you don’t misunderstand”. I love that saying. We can not know the truth until it splits us open. But we can certainly know untruth. We just need to quite a bit at a time by letting the misunderstanding go. We have to let go of our fascination with misunderstanding and the pain that it brings upon us. That is a tall order for a culture that disseminates misunderstanding as way of life. But if we pay attention on a daily level, we can become more clear. We will realize that we are that we seek. Understanding is our true nature, we just have to stop distracting our selves. The truth will become self evident.

There can only be spiritual progress, if we confront our shadow, that part of the Soul which our ego does not want to see and acknowledge. This applies to nations as well as individuals. Iranian-born Abdi Assadi is a ruthless “exposer” of the shadow. The British musician Sting called his book “Shadows on the path” “a word-bomb placed underneath the altar of the church of spiritual complacency”. Assadi grew up in Pakistan and Nigeria, today he lives as a healer in New York. Wolf Schneider met him in Munich in April and after that conducted the following interview with him via E-mail.

WS: You live in New York. In April this year you came to Germany (Was it for the first time?) and met some people from the ‘Growth Movement’ (be they spiritually or therapeutically oriented). What difference do you see between people in the USA and Europe (or specifically Germany) in how they relate to the issues of human growth?

AA:I had visited Germany before, having been there to check out Ramesh Balsekar and Mother Meera in the 90s. This time I did get to visit many different cities in the North and South and talk to different people in the Growth Movement as you put it. There is a large difference between Germany and the US, especially the receptivity of people to the actual machinations of the human shadow which is what I was talking about. I remember my first night giving a talk in Hamburg being blocks away from a bombed out church that was left that way as a reminder of the horrors of WWII. Same when I was in Berlin and the Holocaust memorial as well as a train station that was used to transfer people to the concentration camps. The collective unconscious of Germany is fresh with what happens when the unconscious is repressed. Also, Germany is an old country, it has been around in different forms for many years. There is a realism there that does not really exist in the US or at best exists only on the fringe.

The US is a new country, only several hundred years old. And a place where the pilgrim settlers were puritans and that fact still informs the culture. The shadow is hugely suppressed here and there is a Mickey Mouse aspect to how a lot of the culture runs. We still have not truly come to terms with the fact that this country was built on the back of slaves, that our foreign policy has led and continues to lead to the murder of millions of people world wide. We still run on the idea that we are number one even though we have two million people in prison, that forty million of our fellow citizens are so poor as to need food stamps, that we are in debt to our eyeballs. The corporate media in the US has the population by the balls and there is not a lot of variation to allow people to get off the main topics dictated by these powers. The spiritual movement is also effected by that. The “feel good, every thing is fine, get yours” narcissistic ideology permeates a lot of the movement here. Of course there are elements that have kept away from that but they are not as prevalent as the “positive thinking” aspect of it. Spirituality and human growth has become a commodity to be purchased and consumed, just as all other products.

WS: Spirituality as a commodity that can be purchased and consumed, that aspect of it can be felt in Germany as well, hardly any less than in the States. Our globalized economy seems to prefer, if not dictate forms of spirituality, religion, worship which fit well into it and thus create a way of spiritual being which is very shallow.

AA: I am sure you are right in that the globalization process that is making corporations salivate is making such things uniform. At the same time I do feel there is a difference. When I was in Germany, your defense minister Schneider got crucified and had to resign over plagiarism of his doctorate work. In the US the crooks that brought us into this financial melt down all have their jobs and no one held accountable. In Germany people were up in arms over nuclear reactors due to what happened in Japan. In the US there was barely a whimper. In Germany there has been some recognition of what your past has been. In the US we still scream we are number one as our economy crumbles. These are symptoms of a culture whose shadow is profoundly repressed.

WS: Thank you for acknowledging that! I think you are right in that observation that we Germans are less arrogant concerning the value of our nation and our national character. We have confronted the horrible aspects of our past and our national character more than other nations. Your book is about shadow work: Individuals have to do it, but also nations have to do it. The US has to do it, Japan has to do it, for sure also China. Still even in Germany I am not too optimistic about the depth of our shadow work. I remember well how many decades it took for my parents to confront their Nazi past, how long it took for me, and I see the young generation rather nonchalant about it. I think we now have to do our shadow work as a planetary civilization. That means for instance – to pick out only two points among many others: confronting what we have done with our biotope which did support us so far but is not likely to do that so easily in the future; and our susceptibility to religious (or political) fundamentalism.

AA: That is an important point you bring up: absolutely nations have to look at their shadow and then globally. But then it comes right back to the individual. All nations have had and continue to have huge shadows. In the US the shadow has been projected on a rotating level from the Native Indians we wiped out to get this land, to the African we enslaved to cultivate the land and build it, then the Chinese, Irish and Italian immigrants on to Germans and Japanese during WWII and now the Arabs. And by no means is this a uniquely American trait, just that we have had so many migrants here that it has spread across all races. One can look at the frighteningly racist cartoons printed over the last several hundred years to get a clear picture of the phenomenon of shadow projection: of projecting unresolved aspects of one self unto others. To your point, this is a global phenomena but it can only be healed on an individual basis. Bottom up really, not the other way. And yes, one only needs to look at the nature of our planet to realize that we still have lots of work to do. We are at the point were we can not drink the water or eat the food or breathe the air and yet most of us are merrily along our lives. Nature is starting to shake us out of our slumber though.

WS: Okay, let’s now go to the individual: The spiritual seeker as he or she quite often is called wants to transform his ego by confronting the inner demons, doing the mandatory shadow work, going through the dark night of the soul, but …. quite often is trapped by a narcissistic guru or therapist, lands in a circle of the »chosen few« or with a mantra or any other method miraculously surpassing all that has hitherto been practiced by humans. How then to get out of that trap?

AA: Let me preface by saying that there are some living enlightened teachers that correctly point out that as long as the ego is present, one is pretty much screwed when it comes to spiritual work. What they mean is that the ego is not and can not be interested in any thing besides its own propagation, its own interests. This however can be misunderstood as meaning that we are helpless and there is nothing to do unless awakening hits us in the head. And nothing could be further from the truth. There is striving involved in awakening even though striving has to be given up at some point since it is the “I” that is striving. But we can be deadly “I”s or more benign “I”s and the planet needs more of the later. All things that fortify the deadly “I” are things that culture tends to glorify: organized religion, nationalism and pretty much all other “isms” since they strengthen instead of weaken the sense of “I”.

To your point, those steps along the way that you correctly describe is the ego playing hide and seek but the ego does get its wall whacked open here and there. Even the narcissistic guru or therapist has its place in pointing up towards our self. The wool can only be pulled over our eyes for so long. In my experience, all steps have served a purpose and have mirrored back a place that needed healing with in my self. And grace is a real thing, there is an intelligence in this plane that takes no prisoners when a part of us says “I want to wake up”. It answers immediately much to the surprise of the ego that was just bluffing.

The only way to get out of the trap that you describe is to first get our ass kicked so bad that we get humble enough to realize there is a problem. When we throw our hands up is when the real dying starts. There is a phenomena that is taking place right now were some of us are having glimpses of the whole with out having to go through the process that others of us had to go through before. It seems that Gaia in her wisdom is pushing us to the next level of evolution by awakening us. So that trap might not even be an issue real soon as the collective starts awakening.

WS: I have felt drawn this way and that between believing that “All is getting better every day; we are experiencing a shift in consciousness of historical dimensions” and “Oh shit, look at Fukushima, the wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere, the widening gap between rich and poor, the destruction of nature”. Which in a way leads to the decision: Do I want to be optimist or pessimist. And each time I have decided to remain optimistic, “for reasons of mental health” – my health – and because as an optimist I am more inclined to work for he good outcome.

As to how much spiritual awakening is happening or how much spiritual self deceit: I see there is an explosion of interest in spiritual matters, also some increase in the dedication put to it and the depth of self inquiry, but there is also a huge increase in pretense as to what is spiritual. There is spiritual jargon flooding the various spiritual subcultures that has taken in a number of celebrities and is diffusing down the social strata and infecting the masses. On one hand that is opening doors to true understanding – occasionally. On the other hand it deceives, because it is only as if. It may still the hunger for truth for a while but without really nourishing.

AA: I know what you mean, the dance between “there finally seems to some light at the end of the tunnel” and “oh boy, we are screwed”. Of course, from the view point of the ego, we are always screwed. It will never turn out well for the ego, even in the best case scenario (which is rare) where we escape serious suffering. We, the ego, will lose all that is dear in the end. In the realm of the ego, only a fool would be optimistic. And in the awakened realm, there is no attachment so there is neither pessimism nor optimism as the dream nature of this realm is forcefully apparent. All just is. I certainly vote for a sweet dream instead of a nightmare but that is a collective decision which will take some softening of our collective egos yet. The Nisargadatta line comes to mind here: “When you realize you are everything, that is love; when you realize you are nothing, that is wisdom”.

But I feel you are talking about the bigger you when you say “Do I want to be pessimistic or optimistic”. Certainly freaking out about the world doesn’t help the situation. Personally, I keep informed about the world around me but as soon as my heart starts shutting down and division takes over in terms of fear or anger, I pull back into connecting with center. We have been through plagues and disasters that wiped out a major portion of humanity. Somehow we forget that we are impermanent. That alone is a powerful teacher. This teetering feeling of all these disasters is a bitter but healing medicine for the ego that feels it is solid. And of course, as Westerners we have been more fortunate than half of the world that has been living on a couple of dollars a day, is starving, dying of thirst, demolished by war etc.

The light and dark always dance together in this realm, that is its nature. As much awakening that is happening, there will be an equal amount of the pseudo ego infused energy with it. That is how it always is. I do see that people are getting a bit more wise but as a healer for a quarter century I have learned to never underestimate people’s attachment to their ego and all the suffering that entails. And hence our communal suffering. Our egos will do their best to the very end to as you beautifully put it “hunger for truth with out nourishing”. There is a manic sense to that kind of seeking though, a falseness that is more apparent than before. That is what I am seeing any way. The external calamities are fully in effect internally in people as well. They are one and the same on one level. There is a desperation that is palpable, in New York any ways. Ultimately it goes back to the fact that all we can do is do our own work. Honestly, humbly and thoroughly.

One last thing I did want to say room permitting. What I see as a big problem in our seeking spiritual knowledge is our confusion between the phenomenal and the absolute. The big gurus like Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta really were not concerned with phenomenal issues like relationships, how to make a right living, wars etc. They always pointed to the absolute, our true nature. Once in a while they would say something like “you idiots, all your problems are because of your selfishness which is your ego-centric desires”. That is also true of some of the modern gurus. Then there are other teachers that are focusing on the phenomenal but are not really aware of the absolute or are so only in theory and not direct experience. You can tell by the way they peddle experiences, phenomena, getting high etc. Of course both are valid, it is essential to know your true nature and also wonderful to not betray one self in love or work. However they are completely separate issues. I loved your idea of esoteric cabaret, how it attempts to bring the joy of both together. I believe it to be a noble endeavor to have a fulfilling life while one works towards awakening. This is what us Westerners can bring to the table, but it needs to be done consciously otherwise it will be another big mess. This is where one has to be aware of what the guru is offering. Unless one is totally fed up with life and has burned all desire (rare and unlikely), then one needs to be clear why one is following a specific guru. Our projection of the need for parental perfection on any teacher is where the shadow hides and bites us in the ass. The more clear we are about our own intent, the less likely for us to fall into that trap. Any ways, falling into that trap is also part and parcel of waking up. I have learned as much from the betrayals of my own teachers as I have from their clarity. Alas all are pointers back to our Self.

For more information and to register, please visit the Omega Institute website for details by following this link: Abdi Assadi at The Omega Institute.

In a culture where spirituality has become a commodity, it can be difficult to differentiate between what helps us awaken and what keeps us asleep. It is a common misconception for spirituality to be viewed as movement toward the light instead of delving into, identifying, and integrating repressed aspects of our psyche. In this workshop, we examine this often overlooked aspect of spiritual attainment: our shadow.

Guided by spiritual counselor Abdi Assadi, we examine some of the ways we can skip doing deep spiritual work by hiding our shadow behind spiritual practices and spirituality in general. Through guided meditations, lecture, experiential exercises, group discussion, and question-and-answer sessions, we explore the original wounds that bring us to the spiritual path, unhealthy teacher-student relationships, and addictive behaviors masquerading as spiritual practice. We also discover how to use personal relationships as powerful vehicles for spiritual transformation and discover helplessness and surrender as tools for spiritual growth.

To get a sense of what this workshop is all about, you can listen to the podcasts created from the same workshop last year:

• Session One
• Session Two
• Session Three
• Session Four
• Session Five

Alternatively, you can go grab them on iTunes

AbdiAssadi.com

The title of the event program was, An Evening with Abdi Assadi, “Insight into Your Intuitive Nature…How to Recognize It, and How to Use It”

If you have trouble seeing the embedded video below, here is the link to the video on YouTube: http://youtu.be/h6hcX0tXfAw

AA: I will tell you a story. I started my work when I was very young. I started working as an acupuncturist when I was 23 or 24. This was when the AIDS epidemic was starting in New York. This was before the invention of all the medications that help people, so many people with AIDS were dying. I walk into the room and there was this man, only a year or two older then me, he is dying, weighs nothing, is going blind. And he is looking in the reflective surface of the towel dispenser doing positive thinking: “My T-cells are growing now. My skin is getting better.” I think he died six weeks later. That was the first time I realized how dangerous this positive thinking stuff is; and that was when this positive thinking movement had just started and I think this is global because all this materialistic positive thinking bullshit came out of America.

All this positive thinking is about negating life as it is and maintaining control over it. But you don’t have control over life. There is this illusion in our culture that if you have proper spiritual training you will not suffer. But when you realize that many of the great Zen and Advaita Masters like Ramana Maharshi, Nisargatta and so forth died of cancer that would mean they were not spiritually awake – which they were. You don’t reach the light by imagining figures of light. You reach there by going underground and grappling with what we consider the shadow. At least for me there is no other way. I have worked for 25 years now, I have treated thousands of people and I have yet to meet someone who can bypass these things.

DR: So for you the spiritual journey is just this? To unravel the shadows? And it is not about getting something but getting rid of the shadows?

AA: Oh yes! You just said it so beautifully man. The spiritual journey is about losing. It is about losing everything. And it is only for the brave. It is about getting naked in the most frightening way you can get naked. Everything we seem to gain in the spiritual journey is from the ego. There is absolutely no gain. If people say “I had that experience” – yes, your “I” had that experience. The real spiritual experience kills the “I”. But you can’t kill the “I”, because you are the “I”. So there is this confusion. It is again the ego, constantly accumulating. The real smell of Love is when you have been killed enough to be trusted with others. The “I” that wants to save the environment is the same “I” that destroys it. The “I” that wants to be a healer is the same that causes all the pain through selfishness. It is the sense of “I” that we have to lose. If you think you are your shirt you are in trouble. But that’s what people do: they just get a nicer shirt. Instead of nylon, it is now cotton. But it is still a shirt.

All this positive thinking stuff is about using the willpower to push away any pain, whereas spirituality is about letting the will power go. But we are all control freaks and we are all anxious. So this is creating a kind of spiritual sub-personality inside the ego.

DR: Would you say it is even more dangerous, because the ego gets more and more subtle with these so called “spiritual experiences”?

AA: Again very beautiful what you are saying. There are two things. First, you and me were drug addicts. So when we were addicts, we knew we had a problem. And when people looked at us, they also knew we had a problem. And me and you have had kundalini experiences, unity experiences. There is an “I” that has these experiences and you are absolutely correct, that it is so much more dangerous. Because the heroin addict knows he has a problem, but when we have a unity experience the “I” hides underneath and feels superior.

Secondly, the “I” will do everything to repeat the experience. Right now there is definitely an evolutionary process going on. I am not a New Agey guy, I am just speaking from what I see from treating thousands of people. I treat 40 people a week and there is something going on in the last couple of years, where people who have no spiritual background are actually having very profound kundalini experiences. It is very fascinating to watch them without a spiritual language to put it into, because they are actually trying to recreate that and they are feeling superior. You are absolutely correct, it is much more dangerous, unless one understands that these experiences really mean nothing. You can have a kundalini experience and still be twisted. And you will even be more twisted, because as you say: now you feel special. With one foot you are in the oneness-experience with the other one you are in ego.

More than that: even if you have the full experience of awakening; the psychological and the spiritual are two different things. There is a misconception that once one is “enlightened” the ego is clear. Bullshit! You can have one foot in enlightenment and the other one in what we in the U.S. call PMS: Power, Money, Sex. And that is what you see with many teachers: The money-thing, the power-thing and the sex-thing.

DR: You have a history with drugs and so do I. And I realized later on my path that there was a point when I just substituted drugs with spirituality. Spirituality was my new drug, it was the same dynamic, it just had a better look. I was still running away from my feelings and issues… Can spirituality be a drug and even be counterproductive to real progress?

AA: You are kinder then me. I would say spirituality is always a drug and it is always counterproductive. It’s another addiction! We live in a culture of addicts. I don’t meet anybody who is not an addict. So instead of you and me doing drugs, if we were bankers and doing money – that’s an addiction. In addition to that we are sex addicts. If we are collecting cars – it is always an addiction. Spirituality is an addiction.

I just was in Hamburg talking in this spiritual center and they advertised a number of workshops. Now: I am not against workshops. You will be here 50+ years, so enjoy yourself as a free being. It is not about the action, it is the intention. I can go to ten workshops and it can be an interesting experience – but if I think they can wake me up, that is a different thing. The bottom line is that we confuse phenomena with the absolute. If you are after the absolute and your true nature, that is one story. If you are after colored phenomena it is another one. The confusion is when you think the phenomena is the absolute. Everybody runs after these spiritual workshops, thinking the experiences there are the absolute. It is not. But as you are here, do it as a free being. Today photography, tomorrow meditation.

The other thing is that we want to be in constant bliss. It is impossible. It is the same thing with drugs, First you need one bag a day, then you need five, you are constantly chasing it. But with drugs you know you have a problem. With spirituality we live in the illusion we are getting closer.

DR: One of the key false assumption seems to be that enlightenment will automatically erase all our shadows. In your book you describe it more as two different layers that have to be dealt with separately?

AA: You have to! It is my feeling that there really is a mass awakening happening right now. In my experience we are moving collectively from the third chakra to the heart center; that is what I see. I have no theories, I have no idea why. But evolution goes on. Part of what I do is to help deliver babies with acupuncture. And the kids that came out 25 years ago were very different, they were almost another species than the kids of today. Now the eyes are immediately focused, there is more neck control – so we evolve as a species, which is natural.

There is something happening. And because something is happening it is even more crucial we do the psychological work.

If you see what is happening in Japan right now that is pure arrogance. We are building a nuclear reactor on a fault line, even if we know every so and so years there will be an earthquake. And we can say “them”, but it is us! Where in our own life are we building a nuclear reactor on our own fault line? And when they explode we are shocked. “I am shocked I fucked all my students.” “I am shocked I took all their money”. “I am shocked I followed this guru”…

The greatest gift we can give to the world in this moment is to do our psychological work. But psychological work is not sexy. The sad thing to see is that many of the people who do psychological work lack a spiritual perspective and many of the spiritual people are just so frightened of the psychological work.

DR: You just mentioned Japan as a mirror, is it your perception that life is just an outside mirror in which we can see our own stuff?

AA: Absolutely. Everything that bothers you in other people is something that is stuck in you. You don’t have to like everybody, but you have to Love anybody. It can be you don’t like certain things about someone, but it does not bother you and you still Love them. If it affects you – that’s your own stuff. In spirituality it is often flipped: We try to like everybody. Liking is the ego’s job. Loving is your spirit’s job. I hear people talk like that always “they, they, they” – that’s you! Everything that bothers you in someone else that is where you have work to do.

DR: That is why in your book you say that relationships are the greatest teachers. And life can actually be your teacher if you live it as that.

AA: Life is the only teacher. And with relationships, I do not only mean romantic relationships. We two can get along very well for a couple of hours. But if we become roommates, we will be in each others face and you suddenly see all these things in me. And romantic relationships are the next level. That is why they are so fantastic in the first couple of months. All our defense mechanisms are down. Sex is amazing, we feel really vulnerable. But if the ego, that is hiding, feels a threat – the walls go up. And then the work starts. So for me romantic relationships are not about romance. It is the hardest thing you can do. To be a monk is easy. And I think only one out of a million people should really become a monk. And I do not mean romantic relationship in the way we are doing them now. Now it is about sex. Most people are going together for sex – and then they go to sleep. But to really stay engaged in a relationship is the hardest thing you can do.

DR: But also a great chance if both are committed to use the relationship as a means of growth?

AA: To me it is the ultimate. Really. It is the cleanest. If you have someone you’re on the same page with, and you both want to do it, it is the ultimate way. And I totally agree with what you say: life is the ultimate teacher. Because things are constantly happening and you constantly have to deal with it and process it. Not in the new-agey smiley-way, but through really opening your heart and seeing where you are actually at.

DR: And do you perceive it as a soul-plan, that draws those persons and circumstances in your life, that you can actually see them?

AA: We both had a certain experience, otherwise you would not be asking such a question. So we both had a direct experience of what you call soul. And I do feel that the bigger events are predestined by the soul. But there is also a psychological aspect that has nothing to do with the soul. When we have specific wounds, the subconscious will constantly recreate them in our life so we can heal them.

DR: So we don’t even need an esoteric explanation?

AA: Well I do believe also the esoteric explanation is true. I used to do a lot of past-life regressions with my clients for psychological reasons and it was very interesting. You take people to these past lives and I really don’t give a shit if they are actual past lives or not. Fact is that people were having these amazing experiences of healing. And one time by mistake, we were stuck in between two lives and that was really fascinating. So then I started doing that over and over. What I found that in between two lives we would have these things, were you arrange to meet other people at certain times to shift each other. But the rest we fill in in between.

DR: There seems to be quite a few Gurus who have a lot of spiritual experience but also a lot of unresolved shadows, which then play out in their teaching and behavior – which has given spirituality a bad name somehow. Could you speak on this phenomenon.

AA: Lets break this down into a couple of things. The crazy thing is how very intelligent people will go with their gurus and leave all intelligence at the door. It does not matter how smart they are, because this is the parental projection. We have such a desperate need for a mummy or daddy. That is the first thing.

And the second thing is that no one follows spirituality unless there is some pain. And just as we used drugs as an escape we now use spirituality as an escape and that makes it very complicated, because we do it to not deal with the shadow. At least I meet very few people who do those things hand in hand. As soon as you have some spiritual experiences you feel special and feel like: “what do I need psychological work for? That is for idiots who don’t do spirituality.” We don’t address these things. I feel it is changing now.

But I have seen so many people watch their teacher do things that are just wrong and blame themselves – that is the parental projection. And in my experience whenever I stepped out in a spiritual community and said “this is wrong, this teacher is fucking all the women; he made that woman pregnant” and so on everybody turned on me. It is like burning of the witches: the whole community comes together and does that. It is still happening right now, not just in 1800′s America. So because of persecution we keep quiet; because we project mummy/daddy we keep quiet; but also we actually want somebody to be the boss.

These people can teach spiritual things. Like I am a good motorcycle mechanic – bring me your bike, I will fix it. But why would you want a relationship advice from me? And that is where many people get confused. I have a very good friend who is very involved in Zen. And he tells me: “My Zen-Master gave me such great relationship advice”. And I look at him and say: “This 80 year old guy who never had a relationship apart from fucking the 20 year old women in your sangha gave you a relationship advice? You are asking a MONK for a relationship advice? He never had a relationship!” And this is how crazy it is. Especially from the point of view of the monk. His job is to teach ZaZen and help you solve the koans. Why the fuck is he giving relationship advices? This happens when you believe your own hype.

DR: And would you say the time of Gurus is over?

AA: Yes. We need a new model. We are brothers and sisters on the path. And a teacher should not be different than a carpenter. It is about basic human respect. We are all the same. And it is interesting to observe spiritual talks. All real teachers I had taught sitting in circles. But as soon as the guru thing is going on, two things happen: To fit more people into the room they arrange the chairs so you are facing the teacher. So it is “us and them”. And the second thing is that they put the speaker higher. It’s time for us to realize how fucked up that is. Everybody has a specialty. I have some experience in a certain area and maybe it is useful for you, maybe not. If you need food, I can’t help you. If you need advice for investing money, I can’t help you. And also my or your experience is not for everyone. Me and you were drug addicts and have a certain experience, maybe a nice middle class guy can’t relate to that. We have to find the right person and resonance.

And ultimately you have to be out of your mind to do spiritual work. Because the ego comes to spiritual work thinking it can fortify itself. But the spiritual work is the guillotine of the ego. It is painful. If there is no pain on your spiritual path – forget it, you are on an ego trip. It is not pleasant.

DR: And what about healers? Because even if it is called self-realization we seem to expect other people to do it for us – that is part of what the guru thing is. And the same seems to be happening with healing, that people get addicted, especially to energy healing, and it is ultimately dis -empowering.

AA: Lets break this down into a couple of things. First off, there is curing and there is healing. Most of what is happening is curing. The purpose of healing is to help people to remember who they are. You can be healed and still get sick and die. A healer is a person who helps other to remember their wholeness but can only take people to where the healer is actually standing. You hold the energy for people, you hold a certain awareness for people, but you are not the healer. You create a safe space, by being really in the moment. All healing is self-healing.

DR: Which is contrary to our current the belief where it is always a doctor, or a pill that is healing us…

AA: Exactly. But all healing is self healing. The job of the healer is to be absolutely in the moment. I start my work two hours before the patient comes, with chanting, praying – and I am not even a religious person, but it is about the mind. What I’m doing is I am forcing myself to be absolutely in the moment. To leave Abdi and his stories outside, so I can become a channel to help them to see themselves in a safe space without judgment. And in the end it is important to release them so they don’t become dependent. This is very important. I constantly give the healing back to them. I can not have any need in that room.

To me disease is a big opportunity, because then we start to ask questions. I have people jump up and down when they have cancer: “When only this cancer is gone I will change my life”. And if it is cured they go back again. Or people start to pray “Dear god if you take away this cancer I will change my life”. It is sad to see how young we are in our thinking. It is not god punishing us. It is all us and we have to take responsibility. And also we have to realize that sometimes we are helpless and at the mercy of natural happenings – may it be karma or not. But we have to face that.

DR: In your book you mentioned that the realization of helplessness was a big breakthrough for you.

AA: If you can constantly go into your helplessness, you are okay. If you really can dive into that helplessness as opposed to the solid ego that will make this life a certain way.

DR: I guess you do not mean “helpless” in the negative sense of the word. So is it the same as vulnerability?

AA: Yes it is similar. But vulnerability is somehow sexy in spiritual circles, which is why I use helplessness, because helplessness is brutal.

And here is something very interesting about my book. It is published in Germany but not in America, where I had to self publish it even though I have a lot of friends in publishing. No one wanted to touch that book. It is not in the trend. The publishers told me: “Can’t you put 4 steps or 12 steps as a path to…” but my book is not about that. And it is also not negative. To me only when we deal with our shadows can we really live. Most people don’t really live. And we always have this ideas that if only we have a million bucks, or if the cancer is gone, or we find a partner we’ll be happy. And the hard thing happens when you do get these things and that illusion is gone, you are even more unhappy. This is helplessness. I do not want to sugar-coat these things. And it is hard work If you really want to be a free being. And for me it is about being free. I love life, I am not a monk – I did that trip but now I think our job is to really live our life.

DR: There is a lot of talking about an ascension of humanity. Although you do not seem to be very new agegy and 2012ish you write in several places in your book that you are stunned how fast people are changing these days and you also stated in this interview that you do see in your work that something is going on. What do you see?

AA: Well first of all people love stuff like 2012 because they are so unhappy with their life and are sort of waiting for a catalyst to change. And want it to happen on its own, without them having to do any work. But I can see, and I am only talking from my direct experience, that people are becoming more conscious. I see that in the kids that are born and in adults. Even though we have the smartest people in the world doing all this propaganda to keep people away from themselves, it is still happening.

And I would recommend to everybody in these times: Take five minutes a day and sit with that stranger you call yourself. Five minutes. Maybe I am crazy talking about all these things, don’t take my word. Do it like a scientist. Five Minutes. Why can’t many people do it? Because we are so anxious.

DR: So what exactly do you see happening?

AA: I see many people suddenly realizing reality is bigger and that they are more then they thought they are. I see a lot of psychic and intuitive insights happening. I have a lot of people seeing auras – people who have no psychedelic drug experience and no spiritual experience, even not meditation or yoga. Something is happening. Is it because of stress, environment? Or evolution. I don’t care, For me it is interesting that it is happening. And my job is two things if such people come to me. One is to make sure that they don’t think they are special and the other is how can they go deeper into it and make it useful in their life.

DR: When you look at your own journey and at those of your patients, how do you perceive it? In my view there is a difference between enlightenment and awakening. Awakening is a sudden happening, an insight, whereas enlightenment is a stage where you have dealt with all of your shadows. And do you perceive the journey there as going in stages or as a sudden thing?

AA: Beautiful question. Those are those people who have this sudden awakenings – like Ramana Maharshi or Nisargadatta. But even for those heavy cats it was still a process. I do not think it can happen suddenly. How I feel it in my heart, there can be sudden awakening if a lot of things in the body-mind are already cleared in past lives. But for most of us it is not like that. So there are definitely many, many steps. And they don’t happen by themselves but by us doing shadow work. I personally had awakenings at 13, 18, 20 and 23. And for me it was very disappointing because I thought I was enlightened. And the shit was up to my chin I would not see it, It came up to my mouth and I could taste it, but I still said there is no shit. But when it reached my eyes and I could not see anything else I had to admit: there is still shit around. And my journey is very common to most of my patients. They have this experience of oneness but then these vasanas, the body-mind tendencies grip you by the balls and pull you back down.

So, no, I do not think it is a one-shot deal. And it is very disappointing for many people, because they feel special. And the test is: Do you feel unique or do you feel special? If you feel special – forget about the experience. If you feel unique, that uniqueness will still have to die down. Special, forget about it. Unique invites another state.

DR: So you see different stages, or gateways, or plateaus?

AA: Absolutely. And they are different for different people. There are two dangerous things. One is to think you have something – because then there is the “I” to have it. The other thing is to go after something – because that will push it away. There is nothing to get. All you are gaining is what you have been all the time. And I would like to add that many people confuse the special power that everybody has – some people get psychic, some people become healers – that stuff is all phenomenal. You can train it, but none of it matters in the absolute. But many people get stuck there and are feeling special. Or people right away think they have to teach something.

DR: It seems you have to become a teacher these days once you awakened, it is mandatory.

AA: Yes. But the top people don’t give a shit, it is only the wannabees that have to – but they are still helping people, so I have nothing against them.

DR: I feel I would like to say that the way you and many people speak about the absolute can also be dangerous as it can easily be misused to dissolve all your issues and use it as the absolute cop-out.

AA: Yes, beautiful. I absolutely agree. I love advaita, I hate advaita. I love advaita for the way these masters lived it, especially the masters for how they lived it. But the followers – and that is very specific to advaita – started to use the idea of phenomenal as equal to “nothing matters”. Bullshit, everything has consequences. I fell into that one myself. In my twenties I was into advaita. But everything matters. This is an experience and it is sacred. The human experience is sacred. I fell into the same trap.

It is interesting that Advaita attracts people who tend to be already too much in their head and should be doing something different, something more Bhakti, heart centered and not Advaita or Zen – but they do Advaita because they unconsciously try to take the left-handed way of destroying the ego.

Do something that makes you uncomfortable. If you are too much in your head – choose a heart path. Always put yourself in situations that are not comfortable. We always hang around people that make us feel comfortable. If we are punk rockers, we only meet punk rockers. If you are a punk rocker – go see some classical music, put on a suit, go into a situation you are not comfortable with. And the suit-person that only sees opera – go to a punk concert. There is no better way to test where your ego is at than to put yourself into a position you are uncomfortable with. We always hang around with people we are comfortable with, spiritual people only hang out with spiritual people. But it takes a free being to go into an uncomfortable position and still be yourself.

DR: So about knowing. I came to a place in my path where reading books is not interesting anymore, I guess you are in a similar place – but you write a book…

AA: Well my first words in the book are: “all words are lies”; that is my disclaimer. Like the first words in the Tao te Ching by Lao Tzu are “Those who speak do not know, those who know do not speak”

DR: So you obviously do not know…

AA: I don’t know shit. But I know what I know and I know what I don’t know. I wrote this book out of frustration really, for 25 years I am a healer, and I wrote this after 23 years, after saying the same things over and over and over. I have nothing to sell, I have a day job. The book is a labor of love. And I would say there is nothing in there that no one knows but maybe it is presented in a different way. This book is not for everyone. It is not pleasant. I am not even writing it to help other beings. But I see my enlightenment as being interwoven with other people’s enlightenment. And I know I know certain things. If you want to learn how to ride motorcycles: I can teach you, I have done it for 36 years. If you want to learn some things about your mind, I have examined it.